Introducing: the SE PHP 4.9.0 Roadmap!

We’re happy to announce that the roadmap for SocialEngine PHP v4.9.0 is now publicly available. Here is what we intend to include in v4.9.0.

Activity Feed Improvements

You asked, we answered. We’re bringing lots of new changes and features to make the Activity Feed even better.

One big way we’re doing this is with the inclusion of iframely(#141). Iframely is a simple API that embeds content into your feed, making it easy to display content in an engaging way just by scraping a web link. SocialEngine will be hosting an iframely API for free (for valid SE licenses), but you will also have the option to go directly through iframely (or host it on your own server using the open source version).

Here’s another thing we’re doing: we’re adding the ability to upload multiple photos (#142). You’ll be able to select multiple photos in the Post Something section and upload them all at once, allowing you to share your favorite moments and photos more efficiently and effectively.

How many times have you posted a status, only to realize you made a typo and have to delete and post again? That frustration is a thing of the past, because we’re bringing you an edit button for your status posts (#143)! Now you can fix your typos and include that word you forgot by simply clicking on the Edit link under your status.

There are several more improvements coming, be sure to check them out and leave your feedback!

Brand New Responsive Theme

We want to create a new default responsive theme so that your users can easily browse content in an optimal viewing experience across multiple devices with varied screen sizes. This will be the default theme when you’ve installed a fresh copy of SocialEngine. It will be compatible with all core modules and will ensure an excellent browsing experience for everyone. Admins will also be able to customize the theme’s color to provide for individuality and creativity (#150).

Licensing and Marketplace

We think it’s important to protect the hard work of our third party experts, so we will be making improvements to the licensing system. This will ensure better protection and more security for your product. It will also encourage more developers get involved with the SocialEngine platform with the full confidence that their work is protected and valued (#151).

We’ll also be adding tight integration with the marketplace, so you can install your plugins with the push of a button (#152).

Please let us know your thoughts about these features. Feel free to post comments here and engage in the discussions for the features themselves. The more we know about your perspective on these features, the better we can prioritize our goals and methodologies.

Also, while we’d love to commit to every idea that we come across, they won’t all fit in 4.9. So if you have a feature in mind that’s not on this roadmap, don’t worry! There’s always 4.10 and beyond.

Having a native responsive theme is long overdue. Glad to see that social share buttons will be included as native as well. I still feel that we’re being short changed here though. What happened to the sub menus? Why not have threaded comments native as well?

The SocialEngine Dev Team should do their best to ensure that this next update doesn’t fall short. Let’s ensure that all basic features come standard so users won’t have to resort to purchases for features that are considered to be basic.

Did you mean 4.9.0? 4.8.9 has been out for a while. This roadmap covers what we’ll be working on for 4.9.0 core. We do not plan on charging for any of these features and they will be part of the Core offering.

If we wait long enough, we’ll be able to skip to 3 :). We do have plans for versions beyond 4.x, but framework has not been decided on. As the time comes closer, we’ll be sure to include our developers on this discussion.

This is great stuff. I wish you guys would spend a little time and redo the forums. Or at least make it so when someone comments on a forum topic but from the activity feed that that post will propagate to the forum topic and not just a comment on the feed. This forum confuses my network. Other than that all is sweet!

Thanks! We’ve looked into that request before – its not as simple since they’re 2 separate things (activity and forum threads). Its also not super clear on threading, etc. We could probably update it so that if you click “reply” it will go directly to the forum thread, would that work for you?

We’re not aware of any upload system issues. We wanted to share the roadmap as a way to let everyone know whats ahead. The current state of the product is stable, meaning all important functionality (such as upload system) works.

Can you link to a bug report on our public bug tracker that contains more information on the problem you’re experiencing or did you contact support and was informed to wait until 4.9?

Additionally, while we don’t speak for 3rd party developers, they should not be saying SE File upload system is not working without linking to an appropriate bug report.

If you’re referring to the uploading error when installing new plugins, It’s a common issue and the issue is NOT from SocialEngine. It’s a limitation in your hosting provider. Some hosting companies don’t allow file uploads if it’s gets larger than a specific size configured in their servers.

Make video thumbnail available for selection when a video profile page url is shared #156

Hi, just checking if work on this functionality has been completed. Will users be able to post links to videos irrespective of whether they are Youtube or Vimeo and have the thumbnail to the video in the preview.

We haven’t released 4.9.0, and as such this is still something we have on our roadmap. Get subscribed to the blog or the newsletter and we’ll be sure to notify through those channels when 4.9.0 is released and what features contains.

Thanks Dandy! Wishing you a prosperous 2016!
Regarding updates, while we’re very close to releasing an update of SE PHP that will mainly contain important fixes and a few other changes, we’ll also be working on a major upgrade of enhancements soon. Stay tuned to the blog and newsletter as that’s were we’ll announce new information when we have it. Thanks.

Hi SETweaks, we appreciate your feedback. Since it was taking longer to release SE 4.9, we thought of releasing a quick update 4.8.10 implementing some important fixes. Now, we’ll be working harder and releasing next upgrade very soon. Thanks!

This roadmap for what is presented will give us many joys, # 142 and # 143 are two of the options that most desired and supports animated GIF # 165 will likely help brighten our Social Network. I’m 1 year and 4 months building my social network and would love to be able to count on with all these innovations.

This news sounds crazy …. one question please … do we have to make a fresh installation of SEphp to have all the new options or we just upgrade ? We are working on a new brand promotional website and we want to know if we stop and wait for the release or we continue and just upgrade after the release …. tks for this !!!

You are perfect right … we also spent a lot of money for responsive themes but all of them are made to work only with their modules/plugins or they have a lot of bugs and errors on displaying the right stuff …so this news about a default responsive theme is great …now the company’s maybe will be forced to create the modules/plugins to be compatible with the default SEphp theme … this will be the best !!!

Hello, thanks for your query. After we’ll release this upgrade, you would just need to upgrade your SE PHP installation to get these features live on your site. So, you don’t need to stop or wait now and continue with your promotions and release of website. Please drop us a line in case of any further queries or you can also send an email to support@socialengine.com. Thanks!

We’re working hard in making sure we’re in a great place with our new major 4.9 release.

We do understand that the ecosystem continues to move forward and there are always fixes that need to be addressed. We’re about to release a bug fix release 4.8.11 in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned to our blog to get more updates on that. Thanks.

Is there any way in the future to have an option to choose between normal upload and flash uploader in the website ? I can see that most of mobile devices do not support adobe flash player so the users can’t use the upload future. Thank you !

@disqus_Rs59zwZ2Bb:disqus I completely understand your curiosity. We’re trying hard to deliver 4.9 to the community as soon as possible. We’ve released 3 minor upgrades in the 1st half of this year and have plans to release this major feature upgrade soon as well but have not narrowed down on a release date yet.